Bottom Line:
The harm caused to families was less widely reported.If news reporting encourages the public to perceive the harms caused by alcohol to wider society as having reached crisis point, a population-based intervention may be deemed necessary and acceptable.However, the current focus in news reports on youth binge drinkers may be masking the wider issue of overconsumption across the broader population.

Mentions:
A dominant theme to emerge was that the scale of harms from alcohol to people other than the drinker had reached such magnitude that urgent action was required (see Fig. 1). Articles cited evidence of spiralling economic costs, growing alcohol-related crime and violence and domestic breakdown to illustrate the extent to which alcohol consumption causes harm across society. This framing of harms to ‘others’ as reaching a ‘crisis’ (Editorial journalist, Independent on Sunday, 24 January 2010) ‘we can't afford to do nothing about’ (Academic, Sun, 26 September 2011) served as a justification for considering the new policy action. Few articles disputed the scale of the problem.

Mentions:
A dominant theme to emerge was that the scale of harms from alcohol to people other than the drinker had reached such magnitude that urgent action was required (see Fig. 1). Articles cited evidence of spiralling economic costs, growing alcohol-related crime and violence and domestic breakdown to illustrate the extent to which alcohol consumption causes harm across society. This framing of harms to ‘others’ as reaching a ‘crisis’ (Editorial journalist, Independent on Sunday, 24 January 2010) ‘we can't afford to do nothing about’ (Academic, Sun, 26 September 2011) served as a justification for considering the new policy action. Few articles disputed the scale of the problem.

Bottom Line:
The harm caused to families was less widely reported.If news reporting encourages the public to perceive the harms caused by alcohol to wider society as having reached crisis point, a population-based intervention may be deemed necessary and acceptable.However, the current focus in news reports on youth binge drinkers may be masking the wider issue of overconsumption across the broader population.